


Kris Could Grow Horns (Really)

by ArgentDandelion



Category: Deltarune (Video Game)
Genre: Biology, Gen, Human Biology, Nonfiction, Science, Species Dysphoria, Weird Biology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 14:56:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19907575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgentDandelion/pseuds/ArgentDandelion
Summary: When Kris was little, Kris once asked when their horns were going to grow in. Humans don't naturally grow horns...so it's a good thing there's biological workarounds.





	Kris Could Grow Horns (Really)

(“My horns finally grew in, and all I needed was cutting-edge bioengineering!”)

In _Deltarune_ , when Kris was little, they asked when their horns would grow in. In response, Kris got a horn headband, which they wore for months.

Some suggest Kris must have been adopted very young to not understand that they weren’t like the Dreemurrs and wouldn’t grow horns. Realizing they’d never grow horns too might have made them sad.

Fortunately…it is possible for humans to grow horns.

##  **Cutaneous Horns**

  
(Kris is smiling because they finally have horns.)  
(Kris’s eyes are shown to have a better idea of relative horn locations.)

Strictly speaking, “human horns” aren’t horns, but keratinous skin tumors that look like horns. These are caused by lesions, and in most cases are harmless. While the cause of cutaneous horns is unknown, it’s thought radiation exposure causes it. Other cases report cutaneous horns growing from burn scars, and a link to HPV (human papilloma virus) has been suggested.[1](https://argentdandelion.tumblr.com/post/183411570841/kris-could-grow-horns-really#fn:1)

Wikipedia lists four notable cases of humans growing horns. All of them are old; the youngest was 76 when she started growing a cutaneous horn. Zhang Rhufang, a 101-year-old woman in China, grew a cutaneous horn on her forehead. It grew to six centimeters in length, and she started growing another horn on the opposite side, too. In length and position, Zhang Ruifang’s horns are the closest to Toriel’s.

Let’s assume, though, that Kris wants horns younger than 76, and won’t deliberately harm themselves with harmful radiation, burn scars, or HPV to increase the odds.

What are the options?

* * *

##  **Subdermal Implants**

Kris could get subdermal horn implants.[2](https://argentdandelion.tumblr.com/post/183411570841/kris-could-grow-horns-really#fn:2) Subdermal horn implants are a kind of body modification popular among punks, and are made by inserting small pieces of coral, silicone or Teflon under the skin of the forehead. This gives the appearance of small horns.

Most images of subdermal horn implants show horns smaller, thicker, and more rounded than Toriel’s. Fortunately, gradually replacing subdermal horn implants’ pieces with bigger ones as the skin stretches creates larger horns.

* * *

##  **Goat Horn Transplant**

Kris could get actual goat horns, small ones that approximate Toriel’s horns, and get them implanted to their head. The most feasible way to do this would be to surgically remove the horn buds from a baby goat and then, a la subdermal horn implants (see above), insert them beneath the skin.  
Assuming it integrates with the body’s blood vessels (not a guaranteed thing), it should, unlike horn implants, eventually break through the skin and grow on its own.

However, animal organ transplants require intense immune system suppression even if they work, and this suppression would make Kris vulnerable to diseases. A better idea is genetically modifying the goat used as a “horn donor” to get rid of anything that would trigger an immune reaction, or even add some human genes so the immune system would register it as human.

Even better (if possibly more ethically dubious) would be to inject its head with Kris’s stem cells during its embryonic stage, leading to horns whose cells are partially human and less likely to be rejected.

* * *

##  **Matrix Growth**

One of the best options (if still risky) is growing custom-made human horns from Kris’s cells and merging it with their skull. This would require growing bone/toenail cells on a scaffold or substrate in the lab or direct transplant and then “pruning”.  
For the first option, the substrate (coral, a hydrogel, 3D-printed hyperelastic material, etc.) would grow human bone cells (ideally from Kris), either in a mold shaped like Toriel’s horns or in a larger chunk that is then cut into size.  
It could be grown in a bioreactor[3](https://argentdandelion.tumblr.com/post/183411570841/kris-could-grow-horns-really#fn:3), like lab-grown meat, or in a bioprinter, where cells are added gradually to make a specific shape or structure.

For the second option, a scaffold of synthetic bone (e.g., hyperelastic bone) could be surgically attached to Kris’s skull, and Kris’s cells would gradually infiltrate and possibly replace the structure. When the bone composite is big enough, it could be pruned into shape.

These techniques have some problems, though.

Presently, 3D printing can only deal with one kind of tissue at a time[4], and can only make flat (like skin) tubular (like blood vessels), or simple hollow organs (like the bladder). So Kris’s 3D-printed horns would have to be thin-walled and hollow and made of pure bone/toenail cells, or made of thousands of tiny, thin strips fused together before being fused to Kris’s skull.

  
The image on the right assumes Kris has translucent Caucasian-style skin, where inflamed skin would be redder/pinker, while the left assumes darker skin. Disclaimer: Human horn velvet was based on inflamed skin, and most search images were for acne.

For the second option, even if the cells of Kris’s skull grow into the scaffold, there’s no telling whether they would go very far: human bone cells don’t grow on the outside of the body and may be incapable of it. (Which means Kris might need something like antler velvet for a while, which makes the bioengineering even more complex and perhaps impossible at time of writing.)

As humans don’t normally have horns or pseudo-horns of bones, Kris’s body and the pseudo-horn cells themselves may not be able to give or receive cellular instructions. In the long-term, they might degenerate, or even become cancerous.

It’s a good thing there’s always horn headbands.

* * *

  1. Incidentally, rabbit papilloma causes hornlike growth in rabbits; this is thought to be the inspiration for the jackalope myth. [↩︎](https://argentdandelion.tumblr.com/post/183411570841/kris-could-grow-horns-really#fnref:1)

  2. This would probably the cheapest, easiest, and safest option, though the least like the real thing. It’s also the one Toriel would be most likely to authorize. (Though it’s still very unlikely, given _Deltarune_ Toriel’s personality and tastes) [↩︎](https://argentdandelion.tumblr.com/post/183411570841/kris-could-grow-horns-really#fnref:2)

  3. (a vessel that grows a biologically active environment. A fermentation tank used to grow brewer’s yeast is similar; bacteria for sourdough bread can be grown in bioreactors. [↩︎](https://argentdandelion.tumblr.com/post/183411570841/kris-could-grow-horns-really#fnref:3)




**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my [Tumblr](https://argentdandelion.tumblr.com/). Feel free to comment on this article there or here.


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